Publications by authors named "Victor M Oguoma"

Objectives: To assess Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's knowledge about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, and their attitudes to and behaviours regarding COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations.

Study Design: Web-based survey.

Setting: Australia (excluding the Northern Territory), 1 October 2021 to 31 May 2022.

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Background: Pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) can lead to long-term respiratory sequelae, including bronchiectasis. We determined if an extended (13-14 days) versus standard (5-6 days) antibiotic course improves long-term outcomes in children hospitalized with CAP from populations at high risk of chronic respiratory disease.

Methods: We undertook a multicenter, double-blind, superiority, randomized controlled trial involving 7 Australian, New Zealand, and Malaysian hospitals.

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Background: In Australian remote communities, First Nations children with otitis media (OM)-related hearing loss are disproportionately at risk of developmental delay and poor school performance, compared to those with normal hearing. Our objective was to compare OM-related hearing loss in children randomised to one of 2 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) formulations.

Methods And Findings: In 2 sequential parallel, open-label, randomised controlled trials (the PREVIX trials), eligible infants were first allocated 1:1:1 at age 28 to 38 days to standard or mixed PCV schedules, then at age 12 months to PCV13 (13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, +P) or PHiD-CV10 (10-valent pneumococcal Haemophilus influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine, +S) (1:1).

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Globally, depression and anxiety are major public health concerns with onset during adolescence. While rural Australia experiences overall lower health outcomes, variation in mental health prevalence rates between rural and urban Australia is unclear. The aim of this paper was to estimate the pooled prevalence rates for depression and anxiety among young Australians aged between 10 and 24 years.

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Indigenous Australians experience poorer health than non-Indigenous Australians, with cardiometabolic diseases (CMD) being the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Built environmental (BE) features are known to shape cardiometabolic health in urban contexts, yet little research has assessed such relationships for remote-dwelling Indigenous Australians. This study assessed associations between BE features and CMD-related morbidity and mortality in a large sample of remote Indigenous Australian communities in the Northern Territory (NT).

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Article Synopsis
  • Australian First Nations children face high risks of bacterial infections like otitis media, prompting the PREVIX trials to assess the effectiveness of new pneumococcal vaccines.
  • The PREVIX_BOOST trial involved Aboriginal children in remote Northern Territory communities, evaluating the immune response to either a PCV13 or PHiD-CV10 booster after earlier vaccine schedules.
  • The study found that 95% of the 261 participants had adequate serum samples for analysis, aimed at measuring antibodies and overall health outcomes post-vaccination.
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Background: High-level evidence is limited for antibiotic duration in children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) from First Nations and other at-risk populations of chronic respiratory disorders. As part of a larger study, we determined whether an extended antibiotic course is superior to a standard course for achieving clinical cure at 4 weeks in children 3 months to ≤5 years old hospitalized with CAP.

Methods: In our multinational (Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia), double-blind, superiority randomized controlled trial, children hospitalized with uncomplicated, radiographic-confirmed, CAP received 1-3 days of intravenous antibiotics followed by 3 days of oral amoxicillin-clavulanate (80 mg/kg, amoxicillin component, divided twice daily) and then randomized to extended (13-14 days duration) or standard (5-6 days) antibiotics.

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Obesity is a public health crisis in Kuwait. However, not all obese individuals are metabolically unhealthy (MuHO) given the link between obesity and future cardiovascular events. We assessed the prevalence of the metabolically healthy obese (MHO) phenotype and its relationship with high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in Arab and South Asian ethnic groups in Kuwait.

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The health of Indigenous Australians is far poorer than non-Indigenous Australians, including an excess burden of infectious diseases. The health effect of built environmental (BE) features on Indigenous communities receives little attention. This study's objective was to determine associations between BE features and infectious disease incidence rates in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia.

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Introduction: Scabies is recognised as a neglected tropical disease, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable populations around the world. Impetigo often occurs secondarily to scabies. Several studies have explored mass drug administration (MDA) programmes, with some showing positive outcomes-but a systematic evaluation of such studies is yet to be reported.

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Background: People from racial minority groups in western countries experience disproportionate socioeconomic and structural determinants of health disadvantages. These disadvantages have led to inequalities and inequities in health care access and poorer health outcomes. We report disproportionate disparities in prevalence, hospitalisation, and deaths from COVID-19 by racial minority populations.

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Background: Almost all Aboriginal children in remote communities have persistent bilateral otitis media affecting hearing and learning throughout early childhood and school years, with consequences for social and educational outcomes, and later employment opportunities. Current primary health care and specialist services do not have the resources to meet the complex needs of these children.

Method/design: This stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial will allocate 18 communities to one of five 6-monthly intervention start dates.

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Background: Although the burden of bronchiectasis is recognized globally, pediatric data are limited, particularly on trends over the years. Also, no published data exists regarding whether vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency and human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection, both found to be related to severe bronchiectasis in First Nations adults, also are important in children with bronchiectasis.

Research Question: Among children with bronchiectasis, (1) have the clinical and BAL profiles changed between two 5-year periods (period 1, 2007-2011; period 2, 2012-2016) and (b) are vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency, HTLV-1 infection, or both associated with radiologic severity of bronchiectasis?

Study Design And Methods: We analyzed the data from children with bronchiectasis prospectively enrolled at Royal Darwin Hospital, Australia, at the first diagnosis; that is, no child was included in both periods.

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Background: Kuwait is amongst countries in the Gulf region with high income economy. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one in five adults in the Gulf region is obese. This study sought to evaluate the prevalence and magnitude of association between overweight, obesity, central obesity, and socio-demographic factors in Kuwait.

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Background: There is paucity of information on obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and cardiac diseases among Aboriginal Australian patients. This study evaluates the association of various cardiac disease profiles among Aboriginal patients undergoing a diagnostic polysomnography (PSG).

Method: In this 5-year retrospective study demographics, clinical characteristics, medical and cardiac -conditions were analysed.

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Article Synopsis
  • Aboriginal infants in remote Australian communities are at a high risk of otitis media, which can lead to hearing loss and social disadvantages, and the study compared vaccine effectiveness between Synflorix™ and Prevenar13™.* -
  • In a trial involving 425 infants, outcomes were assessed at multiple time points (1, 2, 4, 6, and 7 months) to determine the prevalence and severity of otitis media, revealing no significant differences between the vaccine schedules.* -
  • Results indicated a high prevalence of otitis media across all groups, with 71.4% of infants assessed showing conditions warranting specialist referral by 4, 6, and 7 months.*
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Background: Aboriginal children living in remote communities are at high risk of early and persistent otitis media. and non-typeable (NTHi) are primary pathogens. Vaccines with potential to prevent early OM have not been evaluated in this population.

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This study aimed to determine anthropometric cut-points for screening diabetes and the metabolic syndrome (MetS) in Arab and South Asian ethnic groups in Kuwait and to compare the prevalence of the MetS based on the ethnic-specific waist circumference (WC) cut-point and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and American Heart Association/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute WC criteria. The national population-based survey data set of diabetes and obesity in Kuwait adults aged 18-60 years was analysed. Age-adjusted logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to evaluate for 3589 individuals the utility of WC, waist:height ratio (WHtR) and BMI to discriminate both diabetes and ≥3 CVD risk factors.

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This study assessed the determinants that shape HIV knowledge and attitudes among South Sudanese women by analysing a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey collected from 9,061 women in 9,369 households. Generalised linear mixed model regression was performed. Fifty percent of respondents were aware of HIV/AIDS, with 21% and 22% exhibiting good knowledge and positive attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS, respectively.

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Background: Malaria is still a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children aged <5 y (U5s). This study assessed individual, household and community risk factors for malaria in Nigerian U5s.

Methods: Data from the Nigerian Malaria Health Indicator Survey 2015 were pooled for analyses.

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Objective: Better phenotyping of the heterogenous bronchiolitis syndrome may lead to targeted future interventions. This study aims to identify severe bronchiolitis profiles among hospitalized Australian Indigenous infants, a population at risk of bronchiectasis, using latent class analysis (LCA).

Methods: We included prospectively collected clinical, viral, and nasopharyngeal bacteria data from 164 Indigenous infants hospitalized with bronchiolitis from our previous studies.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought concurrent challenges. The increased incidence of fake and falsified product distribution is one of these problems with tremendous impact, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Up to a tenth of medicines including antibiotics and antimalarial drugs in the African market are considered falsified.

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Background: Acute respiratory illnesses cause substantial morbidity worldwide. Cough is a common symptom in these childhood respiratory illnesses, but no large cohort data are available on whether various cough characteristics can differentiate between these etiologies.

Research Question: Can various clinically based cough characteristics (frequency [daytime/ nighttime], the sound itself, or type [wet/dry]) be used to differentiate common etiologies (asthma, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, other acute respiratory infections) of acute cough in children?

Study Design And Methods: Between 2017 and 2019, children aged 2 weeks to ≤16 years, hospitalized with asthma, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, other acute respiratory infections, or control subjects were enrolled.

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Article Synopsis
  • Indigenous children in Australia's Northern Territory experience high rates of acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs), and this study examines the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) on hospitalizations for these infections from 2006 to 2015.
  • The research utilized hospital and perinatal data to track hospital admissions for various types of ALRIs in Indigenous infants, comparing rates across different PCV types: 7-valent (PCV7), 10-valent (PCV10), and 13-valent (PCV13).
  • Findings indicated that the overall hospitalization rate for ALRIs was 29.7 episodes per 100 child-years, with the lowest rates observed during the PCV
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